


One Life to Live

by daftalchemist



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Drabble, Eldritch Abomination Cecil, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 13:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daftalchemist/pseuds/daftalchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hundreds of lifetimes have culminated into one simple life in a small town</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Life to Live

**Author's Note:**

> I found this old drabble in my Google drive, and liked it enough to want to share it. My first ever gen rated fic on AO3.

Cecil was on the roof, Carlos knew. He didn’t know how since their apartment building didn’t actually have a door that exited onto the roof, but there he was on the roof, and there Cecil was staring up at the starless night sky. Just another mystery Carlos would never be able to solve.

The wind ruffled Cecil’s hair gently as his eyes followed unseen patterns in the pitch black of the void, so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice Carlos had come up beside him until he felt the lab coat slip around his shoulders. He touched the lapel and smiled, taking Carlos’ hand in his own, lacing their fingers together, but when he turned to face him, Carlos saw that the smile did not touch his eyes. He gave Cecil’s hand a soft squeeze, and Cecil pulled his hand away, resting them on the roof’s ledge as he returned to his void-gazing.

“I feel like I’m losing control,” he said at length, when the chill night air was finally beginning to make Carlos shiver. “Of this, all of this.”

Carlos leaned back against the ledge and stared up into his eyes. “Did you ever really _have_ control?”

Cecil smiled, as though the question were humorous. “Sometimes. I had control over where I went, what I ate, where I slept, who I slept with. So many things for me to manipulate.” He sighed. “I feel like things are manipulating _me_ now.”

Carlos shrugged. “That just sounds like life to me.”

Cecil nodded slowly. “But… I wonder if I ever really _had_ a life.”

“Come on, Cecil,” Carlos said, rolling his eyes. “Now you’re just being silly. Of _course_ you have a life. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Being alive hardly counts as having a life though,” he responded, turning to face the scientist. “I’ve lived _hundreds_ of lives, but none of them were actually mine. None of them stuck. Times change so quickly. New people, new languages, new technology and politics. You can’t be the emperor's chef forever, you know. They expect you to get old and die at _some_ point.”

Carlos quirked an eyebrow. “You were really an emperor's chef? What was that like?”

Cecil grinned. “That depends. Which emperor?”

Carlos matched his grin before leaning in for a quick kiss, and Cecil wrapped his arms around his waist.

“My point is,” he continued, “that there was always somewhere to be, something to escape, some new life to take on. But now I’m… here. Just here in this town with this job and this apartment. I buy groceries and drive a car, and that’s all I have, and that’s all I _want_ to have, but… it feels like… stagnating. I don’t have an idea of what I have to do next, or when I’ll pick up and leave.”

Carlos tucked his head under Cecil’s chin, and Cecil hugged him close with a sigh.

“What do I do when there’s nothing else I want to do?” he asked. “I have so much certainty in my life for once, but it just makes me feel uncertain about everything."

“Sounds like you’re human,” Carlos replied, and Cecil chuckled.

“Well, we both know _that’s_ not true.”

Carlos shook his head. “You’re more human than you think, Cecil, and this proves it, in a way.” He slipped his arms under the labcoat and around Cecil’s waist, rubbing the small of his back with his thumb. “I think you’re just ready to learn how to live a single life like the rest of us do, and to juggle all of the uncertainty that comes with it.”

Cecil was silent for a while, his attentions focused on turning Carlos’ words over in his mind, but eventually he gave Carlos a gentle squeeze and hummed contentedly.

“Sometimes I think _you’re_ the one who’s lived hundreds of lifetimes,” he said with a smile.

“No,” Carlos replied. “Just the one, but it’s enough.”


End file.
